WordPress Primer

Why do Websites need a Content Management System (CMS)?

What does it take to get someone to return to your Website after they have seen it twice?

The answer is fresh content! Not only do site visitors respond favorably to the fact that your site is more than a static brochure, perhaps what may be more important, is that search engines also respond to it. Googlebots love to find fresh content.

With more than 20% of ALL domain Websites on the Internet now using WordPress, it’s a fact that the Web has taken a shift from passive HTML and Flash, to a fresh content management system that encourages creative expression on the part of the owner. The days of the Webmaster are now as antiquated as a 1200 baud Telebit modem.

The WordPress Dashboard puts you in the driver’s seat. Meanwhile, in the background it’s CMS software is beaming out a signal in the background via a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed telling search engines whenever you publish a new post. Blogging is now marketing, a form of authentic social advertising.

Be about Something! The days of tell-and-sell are over…

A recent Forrester report states that nearly a quarter of American adults who use the Internet are now described as active creators. They “write blogs, upload original audio or video, or post stories online.”

In September, 2009 DesignWise Studios began to implement this change… with action. We began using WordPress software as the core of every new design – a content management system (CMS) that would empower our clients and enable them to become creators. Our role shifted toward coaching and mentoring clients. We even launched an online school to teach the fundamentals of social media marketing.

Our intent was to provide our DesignWise clients with a reference site that makes it easy for them to go from inexperienced beginner to knowledgeable creator in a relatively speedy manner.

Take a look inside the password-protected WordPress dashboard in this helpful video tutorial:

We like visual tools, so you will find a growing collection embedded videos like the one above, as well as a collection of links to informative coaching blogs and other WordPress resources. We am assembling an ever-changing set of our favorite WordPress Plugins, adding and expanding this resource.

It’s important to start by understanding why WordPress is a superior content management system and this relates to the fact that it is created, organized and assembled from component parts that are all stored in a database. This means that it is capable of being instantly reformatted for delivery to different types of devices that are calling for the content. Have you looked at your current Website on a smartphone? Lots of other people are doing so and those numbers will continue to increase.

The WordPress Freedoms:

WordPress is Free and open source software, built by a distributed community of mostly volunteer developers from around the world. WordPress comes with some awesome, worldview-changing rights courtesy of its license, the GPL.

You have the freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

You have access to the source code, the freedom to study how the program works, and the freedom to change it to make it do what you wish.

You have the freedom to redistribute copies of the original program so you can help your neighbor.

You have the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes.

WordPress grows when people like you tell their friends about it, and the thousands of businesses and services that are built on and around WordPress share that fact with their users. We’re flattered every time someone spreads the good word, just make sure to check out our trademark guidelines first.

Every plugin and theme in WordPress.org’s directory is 100% GPL or a similarly free and compatible license, so you can feel safe finding plugins and themes there. If you get a plugin or theme from another source, make sure to ask them if it’s GPL first. If they don’t respect the WordPress license, we don’t recommend them.

Don’t you wish all software came with these freedoms? So do we! For more information, check out the Free Software Foundation.